I have never slapped anyone before. What possessed me? Touching me wasn’t the worst crime against humanity. Was it?

Well, no, but you don’t have to put up with it if you don’t want it.

It’s because I instinctively knew how Christian would react. I knew he’d lose his precious self-control.

Violence in the name of love is OK!

They dance together. Christian decides to stake his claim on Ana by pinning her arms against her back and grinding against her until he feels better.

“Can we sit?” I gasp.
I’m vaguely surprised we haven’t been thrown out.

I’d say it’s because Christian’s wealthy, but I’m no cynic.

Christian puts another glass of water before me. I do as I’m told.

Good girl.

“What if there had been press here? You’re not above the law, Christian.”

Kind of think he might be.

“No one touches what’s mine,” he says with chilling finality.

Chilling! She describes her husband as chilling and doesn’t run away!

They decide to go home. When they arrive, Christian takes off Ana’s shoes.

“I had delightful visions of these around my ears,” he murmurs.

Which would make your head somewhat distant from the crucial area.

“You’re wrecked, aren’t you?” he says softly.
I sigh. I had no idea I was this tired.

Constantly walking on egg shells will do that to a person.

Taking my hand, he leads me into the bathroom. Why are we going in here?
I sit stunned as he methodically removes my makeup.

Sometimes Christian has these incredibly tender moments in which you realise that HE IS STILL A PSYCHOPATH WHO SHOULDN’T BE MARRIED TO ANYONE.

Back in the bedroom they talk about the man in the club a bit more. You know that advice for writing essays: say what you’re going to say, say it, then say what you just said? It doesn’t apply to novels.

“As much as I’d love to bury myself in you, Mrs Grey, you’ve had too much to drink, you’re at nearly eight thousand feet, and you didn’t sleep well last night. Get into bed.”

So considerate. He even decides when they DON’T have sex.

Images of the day flash through my mind … Who would have thought? I grin widely, the word progress running around my brain as I drift.

7 Comments on “50 Shades Freed – Chapter 14”

Ana is scum. There is no other word to define her. She is such an insecure little bitch who needs a man to make her feel good about herself, because if he doesn’t she zeroes in on random women in her line of vision and needlessly and nastily labels them. There is no excuse for it. None. And, I don’t care how dashing her robot is. If EL thought it was “cute” to do that every single damned time another female is dragged into a scene so Ana can have a “He chose ME” moment, then she is scum too.

And, the labels!!! Silk hot pants and what not, as if these women (most of them who are holding REAL jobs btw) have nothing else on thieir minds but fucking the alimighty prick Christian Grey. Funny, but Ana really is the only one desperate to do that.

I actually knew a guy who acted just like Christian. E.L. James seriously seems to have some knowledge of real abusive relationships. I think she might have been or might still be in one. Christian’s behaviour is just too close to so many real guys’. This book may mark a massive drop in the quality of “literature” and the overall intelligence of humans, but worst of all, I think, is how encouraging it is of guys like that. It actually terrifies me. Ana acts like Christian’s little kid. It’s really like she can no longer do anything for herself and her personality has been reduced to a jealous girlfriend who places incredibly childish labels on people and an obedient, dependent baby/sex toy. I am so disturbed by the possibility that she might be a role model to some women out there.

Its worth saying (taking into account that the series is garbage) that this book is like all the worse things about the double standard of women has mutated into a gross monster. (I’m picturing some kind of mud baby)

I get Ana is the main character, the audience surrogate, the heroine but she doesn’t ACT like anybody who has an ounce of goodness in her but people tell her ALL the time she’s great and beautiful and all these things its clear in the context of the story she is not or doesn’t feel she deserves. She is the picture of an unreliable narrator but all the people who call her out on her childishness are villains like Jack Hyde, who’s bumped up to supervillain level because she won’t have sex with him and is busy emailing Christian to do any work. Its like something out of the fifties, mothers telling their daughters not to bother with college or jobs because it would get in the way of landing a husband and then dropping it as soon as you get hitched because it’ll get in the way of making his steaks and rubbing his feet (brb, vomiting)

Its completely bass-akwards that this book is so retrograde with its sexual politics that Ana is almost ALWAYS has her power taken away and being punished and she has the gall to go “Oh no, what I have done? I’m a bad person! :'( ” You’d think after all the time she’s spent getting fucked in these books, she’d uh I dunno get USED to the idea of it but no: she’s always wondering “What’s going to do???” and crying and muscling through it and then coming buckets. In the first book, it made some sense that she felt uncomfortable with the kinky torture and just forgot to use the safeword, considering she’d never had sex before but that’s no excuse never use it until this book and then Christian throws a crybaby tantrum. “Oh no, my wife safeworded me! Oh my gawd!” like somebody took away his ice cream. Its all in aid of keeping Ana couched in the Madonna/whore dichotomy: she’s there for her husband’s discretion to be his good wife and obey his every whim and if she falters or enjoys it too much, she tarnishes in his eyes and becomes a whore.

Completely agree with you – the Madonna/whore dichotomy so applies here. And yes, she never proves that she’s a lovely person (often the opposite, in fact) but everyone tells her she is and we’re meant to accept that as a substitute for actual characterisation.

What’s even weirder is that it occurred to me the end of the first book and the beginning of the second when Ana walks out on Christian, in any other book Christian would have to redeem himself to win Ana back but it just devolves into the same shit as the first one except Christian becomes MORE controlling. Same thing when Christian goes missing. Its like E.L. James generates these false moments of conflict and drama just to have things go back to the way they were before. I mean, its an erotica I know but if you’re going to do the Beauty and the Beast/Jane Eyre thing, the heroine needs to be the one to decide she’s had enough until the guy has a change of heart. She can’t just get used to the abuse because he’s rich.